Wash U DARPA PCES PI Meeting Report

1
CSE 436Intro Lecture
Ron K. Cytron http//www.cs.wustl.edu/cytron/cse
436/
12 September 2005
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Who am I?

• Ron K. Cytron
• Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
• Director of DOC group
• Rice University B.S.E.E, 1980
• University of Illinois
• M.S., Computer Science, 1982
• Ph.D., Computer Science, 1984
• IBM Research
• Research Staff Member, 19841991
• Adjunct Professor, NYU and Columbia
• Washington University
• Visiting Adjunct, 19911993
• Associate Professor, 1993
• Full Professor, 2002

3
Why Software Engineering?

• IBM Research (Yorktown Heights, New York)
• PTRAN project research?prototyping?product
• Software reviews and evaluations of projects
• Customer interactions within IBM and outside
• Texas Instruments (Dallas)
• Cross compiler and simulator support
• Freeze and thaw environment capture was my
  enduring contribution
• Ultradata (St Louis company)
• Embedded application with offline desktop support
• Noisy data, rigorous testing required
• Memory space very tightI was originally called
  in to help them with compression

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More recently

• DSSI?Exegy
• Start up in St Louis, started with IP work by
  myself and 3 other profs (Indeck, Chamberlain,
  Franklin)
• 8 people in CWE to 20 at I-44 and I-270
• Hardware and software company
• FPGA-based algorithmic development
• Softare for
• Prototyping
• User interfaces, reports
• Language interfaces
• Controls for hardware
• Many lessons learned and still learning
• Lunch is important, talk about it early and often
• Always both
• Success depends on talent, shared vision and
  appreciation of goals, team players
• Things you learn at Wash U are relevant and they
  matter greatly
• Our field requires life-long learning
• Professional development
• Giving as well as getting

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My current status

• On semi-sabbatical
• Two days a week at Exegy (Tuesdays and Thursdays)
• Two days a week at WU (Mondays and Fridays)
• Wednesday is a swing day
• Teaching this semester, but not next
• Then back to full-time WU
• Why am I teaching this course?
• Commitment to quality software
• Love of computer science, programming
• a human-human activity more so than a
  human-machine activity
• Engineering as art science

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Software Engineering

• Unusual field
• Consistent messages, discrepant terminology
• Important field
• Considered pivotal to addressing the software
  crisis
• Diverse field
• Theoryformal requirements, specification
  languages
• Practicetesting, software development models,
  processes, project management

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Course Overview

• This is a capstone course, meaning that you will
  draw from all your experiences in other courses
  to complete the work in this course.
• Design skills, to arrive at a clean, effective
  design for your project.
• Coding skills, to implement your project in the
  best way possible.
• Programming language skills, as all projects will
  involve Java, C, and JNI to connect the pieces.
  
• Debugging skills, to find and fix bugs.
• Testing skills, to search for the presence of
  bugs.
• Theory skills, to prove the absence of bugs.
• Writing skills, to develop clean, effective prose
  describing requirements and project activities.
• Presentation skills, to communicate the important
  aspects of your project at different levels
  (management, customer, team)

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How might this semester differ from previous ones?

• Implementation and Documentation
• Documentation required
• But implementation is equally important
• Testing
• Methodologies in lecture
• Teams practice testing at all levels
• Unit testing
• Application testing, white- and black-box
• Regression testing
• Emphasis on presentations
• Everybody presents
• Everybody critiques
• Everybody improves
• Study of software failures
• Final exam planned on lecture material

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How else?

• Outside speakers from industry will talk about
  Software Engineering from their perspective
• Mock interviews
• Field trip possible

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Course particulars

• Take a look at the web space for course
• http//www.cs.wustl.edu/cytron/cse436/

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Projects

• Disco dance floor
• IEEE students building LED matrix
• Hardware patterned after project at MIT
• Tour-o-matic
• Give directions to people taking WU tour
• How to get from A to B (Dijkstra)
• Account for universal access (stairways might
  have infinite cost)
• Show sites along the way
• Play clips talking about things they experience
• Hook up with other people taking tour with
  similar background (Yente)
• Juke box
• CD ripping
• CDDG (freedb) to get track/album info
• Album covers
• LCD display monitor

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Team Formation

• Q/A on projects
• Team formation
• Social aspects
• Logistics must be able to meet me as a team
  between 911 on Fridays
• Interest in project
• Id like to have each project covered
• Could drop Juke Box if needed
• Wouldnt mind having two teams do same project
• Looking for 4 teams of 5-6 people each
• Form teams
• Each team works on questions now
• No team meetings Friday